Financial Model Overview
How Monument calculates revenue, costs, and profit across projects and the organisation.
Overview
Monument's financial engine calculates revenue, costs, and profit at every level of your project hierarchy — from individual tasks up to the whole organisation. Financials update in real-time as you add allocations, log time, and create invoices.
The Financial Equation
At its core:
Profit = Revenue − Costs
Margin = Profit ÷ Revenue × 100%
Monument calculates this for every task, phase, project, and across your entire portfolio.
Revenue
Revenue represents the income you expect or earn from a project. Monument supports several revenue sources:
- Rate-based — calculated from billing rates × allocated or actual hours
- Fixed fee — a set amount for a deliverable
- Formula-based — calculated from a formula referencing other financial items
- Milestone-linked — revenue tied to milestone progress and billing criteria
Revenue items are attached to tasks. Parent tasks can aggregate revenue from their children using rollup calculations.
Costs
Costs represent what you spend to deliver the work:
- Staff costs — calculated from cost rates × allocated or actual hours
- Operational costs — fixed or formula-based amounts
- Expenses — actual project expenses (materials, travel, subcontractors)
Like revenue, costs are attached to tasks and roll up through the hierarchy.
How Calculations Flow
Financial calculations flow through the project hierarchy:
- Task level — revenue and cost items are calculated for each task based on rates, formulas, or fixed amounts.
- Parent aggregation — parent tasks sum their children's financials (unless overridden with direct items).
- Project totals — the project root aggregates all task financials.
- Organisation totals — reports and dashboards sum across projects.
Monument uses a two-pass calculation approach — first resolving direct items, then evaluating formulas that reference other items. This handles cross-references correctly.
Budget vs. Actual
Monument tracks two perspectives:
| Budget (Planned) | Actual | |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue | Based on allocations and fee structure | Based on time entries, invoiced amounts |
| Costs | Based on allocations × cost rates | Based on time entries × cost rates + expenses |
| Source | Schedule allocations | Time tracking + invoicing |
Comparing budget to actual gives you variance — the difference between what you planned and what's happening. This is key to project control.
Target Profit
Each project can have a target profit margin (or use the organisation default). Monument shows how actual profit tracks against this target, making it easy to spot projects that are under-performing.
What's Next
- Revenue Types and Sources — detailed revenue configuration
- Adding Revenue Items to Tasks — set up project revenue
- Budget vs. Actual Tracking — monitor project performance